"Dan Mattingly N0FQN" wrote in message ...
The issue is it was not invented today. So, what's your point??? You could
say this statement about any subject. It's too, broad in texture. Narrow
your point or I won't give you a grade.

That's what I find amusing about these threads.

People want to play "what if" but they aren't describing the situation
where ham radio would be invented today. The way I see it, the real
reason they can imagine amateur radio is because it's been around
all these years. Form follows function. The proponents of this
thread can't really explain why amateur radio would arise today,
without the bias of the past, so really they can't define what
would arise if it did.

CB is a good example of something coming later. "Radio for
everyone" or something like that. Came about around sixty years
after people started playing with radio out of the laboratory.
They could only offer up a small slice of the spectrum, and that
by taking from amateur radio. And while technology did limit
things, realistically the only model was that of amateur radio,
ie direct between two stations. Now admittedly early proponents
of CB often came from amateur radio, but practically as soon
as the service was created, it was referred to in hobby terms.
Not "this is a radio service that you can use to help your hobby"
but a hobby in itself. Look in Popular Electronics from the time,
and you'll see articles by Don Stoner and Tom Kneital to this effect.
(And warnings from the FCC that it ain't a hobby band.) If amateur
radio had not existed, what would CB have been like?

It recently occurred to me that far more people are using radio
for communication than at any point in the past. But instead
of radio, they are seen as telephone technology. Yes, cellphones.
It makes good use of the spectrum, it is something relatively familiar,
and realistically, people are more interested in reliable communication
with those they know.

On one hand, we have people lamenting that amateur radio can't compete
with computers and cellphones today. Yet, then others turn around
and wonder what amateur radio would be like if started today. I can't
really conceive of amateur radio starting today, because I'm not sure what
the purpose would be. And once you start with that premise, free of
knowing that amateur radio has existed all these years, only then can
one begin to imagine what (if anything) would be available to such
a hobby if started today.

I also note that the topic wasn't about "what would the world be
like without amateur radio" but "what would amateur radio be like
if started today". So yes, one can look back and imagine a history
of radio without amateurs, but the two are indeed linked. Take out
that history from amateur radio, and I really don't see it starting
up today.

Michael VE2BVW